IIPM FACULTY

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Why Indian cops are the most brutal and brutalised lot in this so called feudal democracy.

Most of us have our favourite cop stories, ranging from the gruesome to the bizarre. Here goes my favourite cop story: back in the 1990s, my parents were staying in a town in one of the BIMARU states. They went back home after a few weeks of holidaying in Delhi and found the house ransacked by thieves. Virtually everything that could be carted away was taken, including the LPG cylinder and the stove. They went hesitantly to the local police station where the cop in charge was actually very polite with them but made it clear that my parents should forget about the whole thing. Typical of many Indians, they decided to fall back upon `connections'. They called up one of my cousin uncles who is a very senior cop. In less than 24 hours, the station house officer (SHO) paid a visit to our house and promised action in double quick time. He also sheepishly suggested that if my parents had disclosed their ‘connections’, he would have been spared a dressing down from his boss. In another 12 hours, the thieves were arrested and virtually all stolen items, including cassette tapes, recovered. My parents were astonished at the speed and efficiency with which the cops acted.

That tale just about sums up the state of Indian police and the nature of cops in this country. In many ways, they are a perverted version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Which face you get to see depends on ‘who’ you are. If you are an unknown girl in Punjab who goes to the cops to complains about harassment and lewd remarks, and if you don't ‘know’ anyone, chances are that the cops will beat you up instead of taking action against offenders. If you are the poor mother of a six -year-old girl in Aligarh who has been raped and killed, you will be thrashed brutally and in full public view if you have the effrontery of demanding justice. If your five-year-old daughter in a poor locality of Delhi goes missing, the cops will refuse to register an FIR despite the new anti rape law. Worse, after the girl has been discovered raped and brutalized, the cops will offer you Rs 2,000 to keep your mouth shut. And of course, if you are a member of the ruling class, you don't even have to pay a visit to the police station. The cops will come to you and pull out all stops and use the entire might of the state machinery to help you. No amount of breast beating and debating the desperate need for police reforms (see related story) will hide this ugly reality of Indian cops. Kiran Bedi can go on and on in television studios about the need to sensitize the men in uniform. And yet, an ACP rank officer of Delhi Police named Ahlawat nonchalantly slaps a 17 -year-old girl activist in full glare of TV cameras as if he is cuddling her.

What are the adjectives that instantly come to mind when you think about Indian cops? Overbearing, brutal, callous, insensitive, rude, corrupt and inhuman are just some of the more common adjectives that spring to mind when we think of cops. Sociologists and pop psychologists will have us believe that the Indian cops come from within the society and that their often bestial behaviour reflects poorly on our society and the values that we project as a whole. The logic is: what can you expect from a cop who has been brought up as a child believing that Muslims are terrorists? Similarly, if caste discrimination is deep rooted and widespread across all sections of society, how can you expect a cop to treat a poor Dalit in a more humane manner? As sociology and psychology goes, that is all very fine. But justifying the absolutely rotten behaviour of the cops by blaming social ills will spell the death knell of Indian democracy. No nation can survive without the rule of law. And it may sound pedagogical and trite, but if those given the responsibility to uphold and protect the role of law brazenly flout it, we will breed anarchy at all levels. And it is systems and institutions that make the crucial difference. There are many friends from villages (see related story) who grow up and move along different career paths. One joins the army while the other, from an identical social and economic background becomes a cop. Just see the difference in the behaviour and nature of the two and just see how society treats the two in completely different ways. The army guy gets our respect while his friend the cop commands fear and contempt.

The tragedy is: there are thousands of cops who are brave and honest and who do a superb job of policing. Just look at the police constable Omble who sacrificed his life so that Ajbal Kasab could be caught alive during 26/11. There are numerous such unsung heroes and heroines in Indian police who perform their duties to the best of their abilities. But so rotten is the system that the media and the society gets a dozen examples of inhuman police behaviour for every one example of exemplary devotion to duty.

Once again: it may sound trite. But the only solution to this is accountability and absence of political interference. If Dr Manmohan Singh is indeed serious about the whole issue, the least he can do is intimate steps that will result in the summary sacking of ACP Ahlawat and the arrest of policemen who first refused to file an FIR and then tried to bribe the family members of the 5-year-old rape victim.

Monday, June 03, 2013

The Bombay of the early 1990s opened a world hitherto unseen and the doors of perception had truly been opened, remembers Sutanu Guru

My first encounter with Maharashtra was pristine, ivory tower, innocent and almost like a first love. A small town hick from one of the BIMARU states, I was dreaming of pursuing a Masters in Economics from the hallowed JNU after my graduation. But there was a strike in 1983 in JNU and we were not sure if they will admit students from BIMARU states (Yeah, I know there was no Internet in those days). I was advised to try my hand at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics which was highly regarded. After some sniggers and snide suggestions about my pronunciation and conversation skills, I was given a place. Boy, how it opened a whole new world for me. And how.

The batch had just 32 students and the hostel where we stayed had just 32 single rooms. There was Fergusson College next door and a small hilltop called a "tekdi" right above the campus. And of course, Deccan Gymkhana, the area where it was located, was full of retired Maharashtrians who loved taking long early morning walks. Greenery was a given. And the Film Institute was just about 2 kilometers away. Apart from falling in love with a classmate who taught me Marathi, I fell in love with the Servants of India Society library that reminded me of Thomas Hardy and The Bleak House. I also developed a lustful attraction towards one of our young teachers whose name I forget and began to admire a young professor called Bibek Debroy because he used to allow us to smoke in classroom (of course, he was a brilliant teacher too!). Half the batch was from outside Maharashtra and there were the usual vibes about being a local or not. And yet, all differences vanished when we debated the relevance of Baba Amte, the great anti-leprosy fighter and a man that Anna Hazare can never be. All differences vanished when we heard of V. M. Dandekar, the man who sort of started the poverty ratio debate in India. That short man with a white beard and sort of timid jumping steps was someone we held in awe. As we did Bhimsen Joshi who captivated us hicks all night with his magical voice in concerts. You may not believe it, but some of us actually read Marx and Keynes and animated debates over them through the night; sometimes helped by grass, Led Zep and Doors. Without realizing, I had realized I had started conversing in Marathi. But there was a darker side. Once, when me and my Konkan Marathi lady friend and some other friends were buying cigarettes, I was abused in Marathi by some young guys because I made a joke about Marathi. I wanted to respond in anger, but was dragged away by the friends saying it is not worth fighting with goons of some outfit if I recall was called Patitapavan Sena. My Marathi friends were deeply embarrassed because they knew I understood the abuses flung by those goons at me. We forgot all that soon when we started debating the ultimate what if about what would have been the fate of modern India had Baji Rao Peshwa had not been killed in the Third Battle of Panipat. Some of my Marathi friends were Brahmins, and some were from what we now should call the upwardly mobile castes. I used to sense a kind of anger amongst the later whenever there was any praise of Dada Kondke, Maharshi Karve, Bal Gangadhar Tilak or Gopal Krishna Gokhale. To tell you frankly, I was innocent but not a fool. And in 1983, I sensed that some intellectual morons like us were discussing Marx versus Keynes when Maharashtra actually was being ruled by what my then Marxist friends used to call Kulaks (Sharad Pawar might be a good example today). A small town hick like me who wanted to transcend all this could not fathom how educated guys discussing Marx suddenly became subtle caste foes. And then one day I think I lost my lady friend. When she questioned my status as a Brahmin and asserted how Konkan Brahmins were the purest of them, I could not help pointing out why so many Konkani Marathi ladies had blue eyes. And I laughed. And lost.

I visited Pune again in 2007 and in 2011. Before my 2007 trip in a taxi from Bombay (oh, Mumbai), I had nursed dreams of that old world sleepy charm of the city, despite media torts to the contrary. My colleague Devdas introduced me to some activists on the outskirts of Pune. This was the time when anti-North Indian agitations had already gathered momentum. One of the activists was very happy that a senior journalist from Delhi could speak even broken Marathi. He just opened up and said how the locals were being driven to poverty by this new culture of globalization. I was zapped. Later, I attended a prayer cum motivation session of a group that was responsible for destroying the library of the famous Bhandarkar Institute (close to the Gokhale campus). There, I heard so much vitriol against outsiders and so much hatred against Dada Kondke that I realized I am now in a new Maharashtra. I didn't even go to Gokhale. In 2011, one of my relatives who is studying in Pune, it remains a hot education destination, told me that their lives are made miserable by Marathi goons.

That got me thinking about my other major encounter with Maharashtra. I joined The Economic Times as a young hick in 1986 and actually struggled to find a roof. Thanks to a journalist in Maharashtra Times, the local language newspaper, I found shelter and eventually a paying guest accommodation that had six guys, 20 mice and about a 100 cockroaches in Maximum City. I survived. I loved Bombay of that time because it was so open and meritocratic, if you were willing to work hard. Bombay was exhilarating. I mean, I actually could go to the Taj and to attend a Press Conference and drink so called scotch and have chicken tikka. And then then there were those junkets where a bunch of journalists like me (wow I belonged) were flown to places in Indian Airlines flights to peddle a new public issue which is now called an IPO. But most importantly, Bombay of those times was dreams. I still remember my stint in Business World where Dilip Thakore was the editor. I wrote a story on garment exports and he seemed happy with it. I actually got to meet either Ajay or Dilip Piaramal with Dilip in the hallowed corridors of Bombay Gymkhana. I was so excited after that meeting that me and my friends went on a binge that ended in a place called Gokul in Colaba and then lots of food in what is now called Bhendi Bazaar. You know, the waiters who served us food were Muslims, as were the owners of those joints. They looked at you with a snigger. But they didn't give a damn about the nationality, caste, religion or gender of the person who paid the bill. It is not as if we hugged each other. The realization of "difference" was there even then. But it used to be a kind of live and let live. The live and let live dictum was visible even in that famous Anil Ambani-Tina Munim marriage where a huge media contingent from Delhi was invited. By then, I had shifted to Delhi and was part of that contingent. Even back then, in 1991, the fault lines were clearly visible. The Shiv Sena was no longer just a Bombay- centric party whose cadres used vocal and muscle power to do what they wanted to do. It had emerged as a strong political challenge to the Congress.

Saturday, June 01, 2013

India's boxing poster boy, in trouble over drug connections, is no stranger to controversy. Aditya Raj Kaul investigates
Olympic bronze medalist winning boxer Vijender Singh is not just another sportsperson. Since 2008 when he did the country proud at Beijing, life has been in the constant fast lane. Despite a bad outing at the London Olympics in 2012, he has been in the news; issuing positive statements here, inaugurating a shop there, a top draw at modeling events in the company of actresses, and generally, the man about town.

Vijendra's success at the highest level in international sport has invited comparisons with Sylvester Stallone, not just for the dashing looks but also the Sly's hook and uppercut. The 27-year-old Jat strongman from little known Sirsa in Haryana had well and truly arrived.

But this arrivers' genial facade was shorn to bits this week he was questioned by the Punjab Police in Chandigarh for links with a drug peddler following a major haul in Zirakpur, close to Chandigarh. The story was sensational: the police first swooped on Anoop Singh Kahlon, an NRI businessman, an alleged international drug peddler, and recovered from him 26 kgs of heroin estimated at Rs 130 crores. An SUV registered in the name of Archana Singh, Vijender’s wife, was found outside Kahlon’s residence. The NRI told the police that Vijendra and his sparring partner Ram Singh were his `clients.'

Vijendra has denied any connection to Kahlon but has also refused so far, to share a sample of his blood and hair for forensic examination.

Insiders say Vijendra is no stranger to controversy and had raised eyebrows in 2006 when his best friend and boxer Sonu Chahal died under mysterious circumstances. The 20-year-old was found hanging to a ceiling fan at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) hostel in Bhiwani on March 12, 2006, a place where he also trained. Barely hours before, Sonu had been happily grooving to Hindi songs at a friend's wedding. A potential winner had been nipped in the bud.

While the police had registered a case of suicide, the forensic report claimed “foul play”. The report, a copy of which is available with TSI, clearly states that “based on the type of knots around the fan and the neck and the position of the body, foul play cannot be ruled out.”

Four years later in 2010, the Punjab and Haryana High Court took cognizance of the fact that there was more to Sonu’s death than an open and shut case of suicide. Under pressure from Sonu's family over charges of botched investigations, the case was transferred to the CBI.

Sonu's family had barely started to heave a sigh of relief when the CBI closed investigations in the case calling it a suicide. Said the closure report of the CBI filed in August 2011,“The investigation has disclosed that Sonu Chahal was in love with Seema, also a boxer, and wanted to marry her. But his parents were not in favour of their marriage as they belonged to different castes. Moreover, when Seema developed an intimacy with another youth, Sonu went into depression and committed suicide out of frustration”.

The CBI report cleared the four main accused as well. ``During the course of investigations, it was found that the four accused Narender Sangwan, Pawan Rathi (both boxers), coach Jagdish Singh and Balwan Singh, watchman of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) hostel, named in the FIR were found innocent”.

When asked, Vijendra Singh told this magazine, “Sonu was my best friend for almost seven years. I was emotionally disturbed when I heard the news. If I was in Bhiwani, this death would not have happened.” He, however, refused to speculate whether it could have been murder. ``The police would have a better picture on this,'' he replied.

In 2010, the victim's father Charan Singh Chahal had told TSI that Sonu was murdered. ``I knew from day one that he was murdered. The injury marks on his necks cannot be of someone who commits suicide.” The father is convinced to this day that the coach was behind the killing.

“Sonu became aware of a fake certificate racket being run by certain higher ups and was therefore silenced. I have appealed to the CBI to take over the case as it concerns the death of someone who played for the country both at the national and international level”, said the distraught father, who is sadly and unsurprisingly, left fending for himself.

Sources in the Haryana police, on conditions of anonymity, say that the influential background of those in question have compelled the police to go against the forensic findings that hint at “foul play”.

Charan Singh Chahal says that while the police report did not detect any marks of internal injury, the postmortem report said there were “horizontal marks on his neck, which clearly refers to murder”. He says he has ample proof and will continue his quest for justice, despite the fact that he has only got assurances but very little else.

Friday, May 31, 2013

In 1968, shortly after finishing 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick began work on what he would later predict to be "the best movie ever made" — a meticulously researched, large-scale biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte. A few years later, after adapting Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange for the big screen, Kubrick brought Burgess on-board to write a Beethoven-inspired Napoleon novel on which his epic could be based. In June of 1972, Burgess supplied the filmmaker with the first half of his manuscript; Kubrick rejected it by way of the following letter, thus ending the collaboration. Burgess was undeterred, and Napoleon Symphony was published as a novel in 1974. Kubrick's movie, however, failed to materialise.

15 June, 1972

Dear Anthony,

TI shall start off by saying I don't really know how to write this letter, and that it is a task which is as awful for me to perform for me as it may be for you to read.

You are far too brilliant and successful a writer, and I am far too much of an admirer of yours to patronize you with a listing of what is so obviously excellent about 'Napoleon Symphony'. At the same time, I earnestly hope that our all too brief friendship will survive me telling you that the MS is not a work that can help me make a film about the life of Napoleon.

Despite its considerable accomplishments, it does not, in my view, help solve either of the two major problems: that of considerably editing the events (and possibly restructuring the time sequence) so as to make a good story, without trivializing history or character, nor does it provide much realistic dialogue, unburdened with easily noticeable exposition or historical fact.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

In a chat with Aditya Raj Kaul after the hanging of Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru, Prof. SAR Gilani, under house arrest, talks about the duplicity of politicians and repercussions of their actions in the Valley

What was your reaction when you heard about Afzal Guru’s hanging?
When I first heard they are going to hang him, I was shocked. It was around 6.30 in the morning. I thought of immediately confirming with the family. When I called his wife, it woke her up from sleep. I asked if she had any news about Afzal. I told her about the rumours doing the rounds. She was shocked that nobody had informed her. As I came to know about the curfew in the Valley, I got a firm indication.

Do you think the government has actually mishandled it?
I have been talking about the legalities of the case, about Afzal not getting a fair trial. The manner in which it has been done doesn’t only violate the law of the land but also democratic principles. Very basic human values were trampled upon. There is no doubt that it was nothing but a politically motivated decision.

Political commentators have been speaking about similarities between the hanging of Maqbool Bhat in 1984 with the present case. Do you think there will be repercussions in the Valley like we saw in 1989-90 onwards?
I was right now talking to my friends about the very same issue. I pity the leadership in this country. The leadership that is supposed to run a huge country, the largest democracy on earth, their vision is so narrow that they cannot see beyond the 2014 elections. It will definitely have very serious repercussions. I can see the situation developing right now, especially among the youth. I think this is going to be a disaster. I wish it (Afzal’s hanging) never happened. The way they have handled it, they have given a message to the people of Kashmir, that you’ll never get justice. Nothing happened immediately after Maqbool Bhat’s hanging. Similarly, at present, it may not happen immediately, but it will have far-reaching consequences. Secondly, we were kids during Bhat’s hanging and our generation, as I see it, wasn’t very politically aware. The generation now is highly aware. We live in an era of information. In Afzal’s case, everyone knows how systematically justice has been denied to him. Everyone knows how this decision was politically motivated.

You were charged in the case in the beginning, but the Supreme Court acquitted you. Later, there was an attempt on your life by unidentified people. Looking at the developments since Afzal’s hanging, do you fear for your life today?
The attempt on my life and the two years I served on death row were orchestrated by the system. There is no doubt about it. And when you stand against the system, they target you. I know that I am in danger. They even tried to gag me for the last three days. I know this case in and out and know how injustice has been done. As a human being, if you can’t open your mouth when you know a wrong is being done, then I don’t think you have any right to call yourself a human being. By doing this, I may be putting myself in danger but I cannot stop myself. My conscience won’t allow me to do that.

J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah said that those Kashmiris who didn’t identify with Maqbool Bhat will today identify with Afzal Guru. How do you look at the statement?
Omar Abdullah is trying to wash his hands off. He is equally responsible. It (Afzal’s hanging) wasn’t done without his consent. I will take you a bit back when Ajmal Kasab was hanged amidst secrecy. That day Omar Abdullah had tweeted that similar kind of secrecies can be maintained in other cases related to national security. He was actually linking to this particular case, suggesting that the execution could take place just as the way it was done in Ajmal Kasab’s case. It’s not that Omar was earlier not aware of this whole thing. If you remember, in 2006, when death sentence was given to Afzal, Farooq Abdullah made such a hue and cry stating that Kashmir will burn. After Afzal’s hanging, he changed his stand completely. Abdullahs are hypocrites. They can’t fool people for long.

JKLF chief Yasin Malik shared the stage in Pakistan with Hafiz Saeed. Do you think it was right?
As I know about Yasin’s visit to Pakistan, he has basically gone there to see his family. He has a young daughter, who he had not seen for a very long time. She did not have travel documents and there is a policy back in Pakistan that they don’t allow travel documents unless the father comes. After Afzal’s hanging, he sat on a protest hungerstrike outside Islamabad Press Club. This was not something in hiding. It was an open meeting. If there are people coming and going and during the protest this man (Hafiz Saeed) also comes, that doesn’t mean that Yasin Malik had invited him. I think the way the Indian media is taking it up isn’t the right thing to do.

There has been a virtual curfew across the Valley for days, even the newspapers haven’t been allowed to publish. Doesn’t this make things worse?
As I told you, I actually pity the politicians of this country. You deprive people of their basic right – their right to protest. There was no violence. You are gagging people. Just last month, there was a hue and cry in Kashmir over freedom of expression. I want to ask where are those champions of freedom of expression now when the whole of Kashmir is being gagged. It’s not just in Kashmir, even Kashmiris outside Kashmir are being gagged. The way I was put under house arrest. Syed Ali Shah Geelani is here and was put under house arrest and is not being allowed to move out of his house. For the first two days, they (police) were sitting inside his room and not even allowing him to move. That was the kind of situation. Even Mirwaiz has been put under house arrest.